Unmasked (The Vampire Diaries 13) - Page 47
Elena quickly wrote another note and passed it back up to Bonnie.
You have to meet me. I have so much to tell you.
Bonnie, you’re a witch.
“Are you serious about all this?” Bonnie asked. “I’m not going to be mad if you were kidding, Elena.” She hefted one of the bags Mrs. Flowers had given them over her shoulder and stepped carefully over a broken gravestone.
Elena had told Bonnie everything. About Stefan and Damon, about coming here from a possible future. About how Bonnie would grow into one of the most powerful witches Elena had ever met. How much Elena needed her help.
Telling Bonnie was the only thing she could think of to do. Matt and Meredith had been hurt too much by their association with the supernatural to bring them into this. Stefan would have been the worst person imaginable to pit against Damon right now.
But Bonnie? In the future, Bonnie was happy. And she was amazingly full of Power. If only they could tap into that Power now, use Bonnie’s magic even though she was completely untrained, Bonnie could be a true asset.
It hadn’t been easy. At first, Bonnie had shaken her head, her large brown eyes wide, and backed away from Elena nervously. The step from saying she was psychic and could read palms to being told she was a budding witch had almost been too much for her. Even now, she was sneaking dubious, worried glances out of the corner of her eye at Elena. But she was here. She wasn’t running away.
Mrs. Flowers had been a surprisingly huge help. She had stood in the doorway of her big old house, listening silently as Elena stumbled through an explanation that really explained nothing. It boiled down to the fact that they knew Mrs. Flowers was a witch, and that they needed help opening something.
“And protecting ourselves,” Elena had tossed in, almost as an afterthought.
Mrs. Flowers sharp eyes examined first Elena, then Bonnie. After a while, she had simply turned and walked away.
“Uh,” Bonnie
had said, peering down the dark hall after the old woman. “Are we supposed to follow her?”
Despite everything, Elena could feel a smile curling at the edges of her lips. “It’s just the way she is. She’ll come back.”
They’d waited what felt like forever at Mrs. Flowers’s door, long enough that Bonnie began casting dubious looks at Elena again and Elena began to worry about what she would do if Stefan came home and saw them there.
But Mrs. Flowers had returned eventually, carrying two duffle bags, and spoke for the first time since Elena had asked her for help. “You’ll find things labeled in there, dear. And good luck getting back where you belong.”
“Thank you—” Elena began to say, but the heavy doors were already swinging shut, leaving Elena and Bonnie on the doorstep. She frowned, confused. How had Mrs. Flowers known this wasn’t where Elena belonged?
“Pretty weird,” Bonnie had said, shaking her head. But she had actually seemed slightly less freaked out after that, as if she found it comforting that Elena wasn’t the only possibly crazy person around.
Now they crossed the older part of the graveyard, staggering a little under the weight of the duffle bags Mrs. Flowers had given them. Bonnie hesitated in the empty hole that had once been the doorway of the ruined church.
“Are we allowed in here?” she asked. “Is it safe?”
“Probably not,” Elena told her, “but we have to go in. Please, Bonnie.”
Most of the roof had fallen in and late afternoon sunlight streamed through the holes above them, illuminating piles of rubble. Three walls still stood, but the fourth was knee-high, and Elena could see the far end of the graveyard through it. The uprooted tree, its branches brushing the walls of the small mausoleum Damon had trapped her and Stefan in, still lay there in ruins.
At the side of the church was the tomb of Thomas and Honoria Fell, a large stone box, heavy marble figures carved on its lid. Elena walked over to gaze down on the founders of Fell’s Church, lying with hands folded across their chests, their eyes closed. Elena brushed her fingers across Honoria’s cold marble cheek, taking comfort from the face of the lady who had guarded Fell’s Church for so long. Her ghost hadn’t appeared this time. Did that mean she trusted Elena to handle the situation? Or was something preventing her from coming?
“Okay,” Elena said, all business, as she swung around to face Bonnie. “We have to get the tomb open.”
Bonnie’s eyes rounded. “Are you kidding me?” she asked. “That’s what you want to open? Elena, it’s got to weigh about a thousand pounds. We can’t open that with herbs and candles. You need a bulldozer or something.”
“We can,” Elena said steadily. “You have the Power, Bonnie.”
“Even if we could”—Bonnie’s voice wobbled—“what would be the point? Elena, there are dead people in that thing.”
“No,” Elena said, her eyes fixed thoughtfully on the gray stone box. “It’s not really a grave. It’s a passageway.”
They rummaged through the duffle bags. “Here,” Elena said, pulling out two little red silk bags, each on a long loop of cord. “Mrs. Flowers gave us sachets for protection. Put it around your neck.” The tiny bag was round and fat with herbs, fitting comfortably in the palm of Elena’s hand.
“What’s in them?” At Elena’s shrug, Bonnie sniffed the sachet before stringing it around her neck. “Smells good, anyway.”
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